Jesse Ferrell in his blog today wrote about how a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska is causing huge swells in the Gulf of Alaska and along the British Columbia coast. Check it out.

This same storm though has much larger affect than just British Columbia. High energy, large swells are impacting the Northwest coast now and large, long period swells increase in California from north to south tonight through tomorrow night.

The peak of the swells will be tonight in Washington and Oregon then slowly subside tomorrow and Sunday. From the Wave Watch III model here is the forecast swells for 06Z Saturday.

There will be local swells reach 30 to 35 feet along some coastal areas tonight . Even though these swells come down through the weekend, the swells Sunday are still pretty big. Here is what the model has for wave heights at 18Z Sunday.

In California the peak of the swells will be tomorrow in northern and central California and tomorrow night in southern California. Swells peak at an average of 15 to 25 feet but some favored areas will likely see 25 to 30 foot swells. Here is what the Wave Watch III model has for swell heights at 18Z Saturday off of California.

Though a lot of this wave energy stays in the outer waters of southern California, some of the energy is still likely to move in to the beaches causing dangerous rip currents on beaches and increasing surf, especially on west facing beaches.

Obviously boaters from the Northwest to southern California have to exercise extreme caution in venturing out. In fact it would be wise not to in these hazardous seas.

Each year there are deaths from people getting too close to the surf line to watch these large breakers and get hit but one of the waves and are swept out to sea or battered on the rocks. Here again use extreme caution and do not venture out onto jetties and areas exposed to the waves. The southern California beaches will be experiencing dangerous rip currents this weekend even with the large waves staying offshore. Rip currents can be quite deadly as well.

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This is usually the time of year when it is not hard to come up with something interesting in the forecast for the Western states. Usually, but not today. I have been struggling all day trying to come up for a subject for todays blog. I am still in that struggle.

Yes, there are a couple of storms that will move through the Northwest over the next 48 hours, but these are not out of the ordinary storms for this time of year and I talked about that on Tuesday. What I said Tuesday still holds today.

It has cooled down noticeably in Central and Southern California today from the unseasonable warmth of the weekend and earlier this week. Again, it is really not out of the ordinary and this too was talked about on Wednesday.

A weak upper low will head west then south of Southern California tonight and tomorrow, then across northern Mexico on Saturday. Other than bringing some middle and high clouds and helping the cooldown, this is certainly not an interesting storm.

Even the longer range is not all that exciting. A pretty strong cold front moves into Washington and Oregon on Monday with gusty winds and a period of moderate rainfall. This front moves south through California Tuesday and Tuesday night, but is not likely to bring rain any farther south than northern California.

The tropics in the Atlantic Basin is certainly interesting with late-season development that could affect the U.S next week. But of course, this isn't the West.

I guess I will take this rather ho hum weather pattern as I am sure the weather gods will make me pay for this relatively simple weather pattern in the future.

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I am going to give some quick hits on different areas today and not concentrate necessarily on one topic.

The Northwest:

A couple of decent storms will slam into the Northwest the rest of the week. The first will be Thursday into Friday and the next Saturday/Saturday night. While not overly strong, expect some decent rain amounts after all is said and done in western Washington and central and northern Oregon. Snow levels will also come down, lowering to 4,000 feet later Thursday and down to 3,000 feet Friday with showers between the two main storms. Snow levels come back up on Saturday ahead of the next front, at least to 5,000 to 5,500 feet. There also could be some thunder Friday with the showers. Also, expect some rain and snow to make it into eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon and much of Idaho.

The California Cooldown:

After some unseasonably warm weather of late with the jet stream lowering, expect noticeable cooling just about everywhere the rest of the week. Northern California, especially from the North Bay to the Sacramento Valley, could get a bit of rain Friday and sometime Saturday, but amounts will be light. The biggest cooldown will be in the valleys of southern California that will go from near 90 yesterday and today to the low to mid-70s by Thursday and Friday.

Southern California/Arizona Closed Low:

A break-off low from the main jet stream will move toward extreme southern California and the northern Baja later Friday and Friday night then into southern Arizona and northern Mexico on Saturday. This biggest unknown about this low is how much moisture it can capture or produce. There is not much doubt that the low will bring some clouds with it and that will be noticeable, especially in the desert areas. There is a shower possible, especially near the Mexico border in Southern California and then into Arizona. How much of a shower chance? That is the unknown that will be told about how much moisture this low can produce. However, it is NOT likely to be a major precipitation producer with any showers being on the light side, if they do indeed develop.

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I have had more than a few emails from my readers dismayed over the turn of recent days of tranquil, warm weather in California and the Southwest. They fear that this is a sign of things to come for the winter and are worried about the forecast I made (and others as well) of a normal to above-normal rainfall season for the winter. I am going to try to calm those fears today.

It is not uncommon that there is an extended period of dry, warm weather, even in El Nino years, in the Southwest. In truth the real rainfall season does not get underway until later in December through March when most of the yearly rainfall occurs. As an example, all one has to do is look back a few years to the winter season 2004-2005. This was the last El Nino winter. For a large part of Southern California, the rainfall season was one of the wettest seasons EVER on record. Back in the late summer of 2004, I predicted a wetter-than-normal winter. Now October was a very wet month thanks to two big storms, one in the middle of the month and another a week later. But from then end of October through Christmas, it was VERY dry. Then, as now, people were starting to panic wondering where the wet winter was. I urged people to wait as typically the wettest part of winter is still ahead of us. Shortly thereafter, the heavens opened up and it did not stop for over two months.

Below is a table showing the percent of normal precipitation for the months of November 2004 through February 2005. You can see how dry November was. Though December ended up being well above normal, most all of that precipitation fell from Dec. 27 to the end of the year. As an example, Nov. 1 through Christmas Day 2004 in Los Angeles, precipitation was only 33% of normal. By then end of the month, December had 303% of normal precipitation from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. That was an amazing turnaround in 6 days.

So don’t judge a whole winter forecast by a pattern that is occurring right now. In fact, the weather will be cooling noticeably later this week and weekend. Some rain is likely to fall from portions of the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley on north Friday and Saturday. A southern low may bring a shower chance to southernmost California Friday and Arizona Friday night into Saturday.

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After the first big wintry storm of the season for the Great Basin and Rockies and a round of windy, chilly weather in the Southwest, the pattern is turning very tranquil on us.

The jet stream has retreated north, and California, the southern Great Basin and the Southwest are going into a long stretch of precipitation-free days with warming temperatures through the early part of next week. Sunshine will be the rule, with only some clouds skirting by at times near the southern Great Basin.

The exception, and this area always seems to be the exception, will be in the Northwest. One storm will bring rain tonight to western Washington and Oregon, and late tonight to eastern Washington and northern Idaho. Showers will continue tomorrow in western Washington and Oregon, with a few showers in eastern Washington and from northern Idaho to central Idaho. Another weaker storm Monday for western Washington will bring a few showers.

No big storms can be seen for more than a week out anywhere, so we all can sit back and take a breather.

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